


Summation

by Sentient Cities (darringtons)



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Flying, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Sheppard is secretly a mathlete
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-15 00:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11219310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darringtons/pseuds/Sentient%20Cities
Summary: Five times McKay met Sheppard





	Summation

**Author's Note:**

> apparently I finished this 16 months ago and never got around to posting it?!?!

_One._

The first time they met, Sheppard was leaning against the side of the helicopter, looking more relaxed than anyone in Antarctica has the right to be.

“You know how to fly this thing?” McKay had asked. He had no desire to climb aboard the flying death trap, but it seemed he had little choice in the matter.

“I know how to fly everything,” he’d said in return. McKay highly doubted he could fly _anything_ , but knew he could hardly back that up with empirical evidence of alien technology.

“Fine, let’s go.”

They get situated in the helicopter, and true to his word, the pilot seemed to know the controls like McKay knew calculus – could probably do it in his sleep.

“My name is Major John Sheppard, and I’ll be your pilot this morning,” Sheppard said. “It’s currently a balmy -9 °C. If you look out your window to the left, you’ll see the mound of ice I like to call Ilsa, and on the right we have another mound of snow, Drax.”

McKay had spent most of his adult life in the presence of military personnel – Canadian, American, Russia, you name it. Sheppard was nothing like any one of them.

 

 

_Two._

The second time they met, McKay was carrying an armload of classified equipment.

“Need some help with that, Doctor?” Sheppard asked.

“Absolutely not. Don’t touch,” McKay said, swatting him away. He loaded the equipment onto the chopper and climbed into the passenger seat. “Are you the only pilot out here?”

“The only good one,” was all Sheppard had to say on the matter. McKay couldn’t argue with that. Sheppard did seem to be a good pilot, and McKay wasn’t one to put his life in the hands of any grunt who carried the title.

 

 

_Three._

The third time, they weren’t alone. Zelenka was half asleep in the back, along with Kusanagi, who actually had fallen asleep. McKay wished he could sleep like that, but even the Dramamine didn’t ease his qualms about the flying death trap, no matter how good the pilot was.

“9861?” McKay asked.

Zelenka groaned. “Must we do this now?”

“Yes. 9861,” he said again.

“Not prime,” the Czech said. “4481?”

“Prime,” McKay said. “1193?”

There was a brief pause. “Prime. 971?”

“Too easy. Prime.”

“Dr. McKay, I am very tired,” Zelenka said. “Why don’t you play with the Major?”

McKay huffed.

“I’ll play,” Sheppard said with a shrug.

“Fine, I’ll give you an easy one. 77.”

“Not prime. Obviously. 1291?”

“Prime. 991?”

“Prime. 547?” Sheppard asked.

“Prime. 4981?” McKay grinned, knowing that with every number, his chances of catching the Major increased.

“Not prime.”

“Hmm. Lucky guess.”

Sheppard shook his head. “4981 is divisible by 17. Not prime.”

McKay gaped at him, not quite believing it.

 

 

_Four._

McKay met Sheppard for the fourth time in the place he least expected – under the ice, within the Ancient outpost. Sheppard was little more than a glorified taxi driver, not qualified, nor with the security clearance to enter the compound.

Yet, there he was, sitting in the drone chair, like he belonged there.

But, thus far no one had _accidentally_ activated the thing. Half the people with the ATA gene couldn’t even get the damned thing to work when they focused on it. Those who had been able to make it work had only been able to squeeze small bits of information out of it.

“Major, think about where we are in the solar system.”

And he’d been trying to get this for _days_ , been poking and prodding at anyone and everyone with the gene, and here was Sheppard, able to bring up the star charts like it was fucking effortless.

 

 

_Five_.

Their friendship was unexpected, but he was quickly discovering that most things with John Sheppard were that way. But still, Rodney was difficult, he knew, and most of the expedition held thinly veiled contempt for him. Even Elizabeth only tolerated him on a good day.

But Sheppard laughed with him, hung out with him, _invited him to join his team_ , and if Rodney didn’t have the mysteries of the universe at his fingertips, he might have spent a little more time wondering _why_.

And over time, McKay got to know him, learned that there was more to Sheppard than met the eye. He was smart, smarter than most military personnel he’d ever met, and it wasn’t just that he was good with numbers. He was _smart_. He had ideas even Rodney would’ve taken months to come up with, strategies most people would never consider, and, most surprisingly, didn’t get that dazed, glassy-eyed look that most people got whenever Rodney talked about physics. Maybe he didn’t understand every word, but he could keep up better than anyone from the social science departments, and even better than some of the real scientists.

 

_One._

Rodney met John many times before he really knew anything about him, and many more times after, but the first time he really saw him was on a routine flight to the mainland. He’d been flying jumpers for a couple months now, but the look in his eyes made it all seem brand new, like a kid opening presents on Christmas morning, finding that’s he’d gotten everything he ever wanted.

It wasn’t the look Sheppard had worn when flying the chopper – that was the bored expression most people wore when driving their car to work, like it was one of the most mundane things in the world.

“What are you thinking about, when you fly?” McKay asked.

Sheppard shrugged. “Mostly just flying. A little about getting under the hood of a jumper to see what makes them go, but mostly about flying.”

And that, he finally saw, was who John Sheppard was. He was smart, yes, possibly even smarter than Rodney realized, and curious. But flying was his passion, inside and out.


End file.
